Monday, July 22, 2013

Last night before going to bed I attempted to put together some thoughts on comparing relative performance between the Zero S's and Empulse TTX's at the eRoadRacing event at Laguna Seca yesterday. The goal was to take a close look at the actual performance in race conditions of those two bikes. It's one thing to look at a spec sheet and say "Oh, the Empulse should be faster" but it's another thing to see them at a race and see the Zero S's beating the Empulses and wonder what happened. Is it because of upgraded controllers, or rider skill?

Bike/maker

Rider

Affiliation

Modifications

Brammo Empulse TTX

Shelina Moreda (#93)

Team Parker Brammo

Unknown - one expects they tweaked the controller settings

Brammo Empulse TTX

Arthur Kowitz (#8)

Independent

He worked with Ely Schless for 3 weeks in Ely's shop reconfiguring the bike, perhaps mostly the battery box

Upgraded to gen4 size6 controller, cooling ducts directing air to motor, unknown further tweaks by Hollywood Electrics and his own line of upgrade/tweak gadgets

That's the raw data. Again, going by numbers on the stock spec sheets the Empulse TTX should beat the Zero S. Most of these Zero S's were upgraded to have the same controller as is used in the Empulse TTX. One was not.

Q1

Q2

Race

Ted Rich 1:51.386

Kenyon Kluge 1:48.068

Kenyon Kluge 1:48.706

Shelina Moreda 1:51.419

Ted Rich 1:49.061

Jeremiah Johnson 1:52.361

Kenyon Kluge 1:52.205

Shelina Moreda 1:51.019

Arthur Kowitz 1:55.586

Jeremiah Johnson 1:55.736

Jeremiah Johnson 1:52.046

Arthur Kowitz 1:57.091

Arthur Kowitz 1:54.417

Brandon Nozaki-Miller 2:05.759

Brandon Nozaki-Miller 1:55.625

During the race, Shane Turpin, Shelina Moreda, Ted Rich and Brandon Nozaki-Miller all crashed out. We don't have lap time data for them because they didn't complete enough laps. The table is also focusing solely on the TTX's and S's, not the Empulse RR's because they're in a different universe of capability.